A Strategic Deep Dive on TikTok, The Boiling Moat of Taiwan, and China’s Subsequent-Gen Statecraft — Matt Pottinger, Former U.S. Deputy Nationwide Safety Advisor (#736)

“As a former Marine, Deputy Nationwide Safety Advisor, I used to be juggling essentially the most severe nationwide safety threats dealing with america. I believe TikTok is close to the highest. Close to the highest, okay? Suppose for a second how preposterous it’s that we’re in a state of affairs the place the principle platform is managed by a hostile totalitarian authorities. The primary platform by which a complete technology of People talk and purchase their information.”
— Matt Pottinger

Matt Pottinger is a distinguished visiting fellow on the Hoover Establishment and chairman of the China Program on the Basis for Protection of Democracies.

Matt served as U.S. Deputy Nationwide Safety Advisor from 2019 to 2021. In that function, Matt coordinated the complete spectrum of nationwide safety coverage. Earlier than that, he served because the NSC’s senior director for Asia, the place he led the administration’s work on the Indo-Pacific area, and specifically its shift on China coverage.

Earlier than his White Home service, Matt spent the late Nineties and early 2000s in China as a reporter for Reuters and The Wall Avenue Journal. He then fought in Iraq and Afghanistan as a U.S. Marine throughout three fight deployments between 2007 and 2010. Following energetic obligation, Matt ran Asia analysis at Davidson Kempner Capital Administration, a multi-strategy funding fund in New York.

Matt’s new ebook, The Boiling Moat: Pressing Steps to Defend Taiwan, is popping out July 1st.

Please take pleasure in!

Take heed to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Audible, or in your favourite podcast platform. Watch the interview on YouTube right here.

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#736: A Strategic Deep Dive on TikTok, The Boiling Moat of Taiwan, and China’s Subsequent-Gen Statecraft — Matt Pottinger, Former U.S. Deputy Nationwide Safety Advisor (#736)

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What was your favourite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know within the feedback.

Wish to hear one other episode that examines the intricacies of US-China relations? Take heed to my dialog with Niall Ferguson right here, wherein we mentioned maintaining the Chilly Conflict II from heating up into World Conflict III, life beneath fatwa, understanding historical past to vary the world for the higher, an urge for food for tweed, and rather more.

#634: Niall Ferguson, Historian — The Coming Chilly Conflict II, Seen and Invisible Geopolitics, Why Even Atheists Ought to Examine Faith, Masters of Paradox, Fatherhood, Worry, and Extra

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

SHOW NOTES

[05:55] Bao Tong’s calligraphy.
[08:20] Matt’s choice to review East Asian languages.
[10:13] Learning with Perry Hyperlink and the challenges of studying Chinese language.
[12:19] Ideas for studying Chinese language and different languages.
[17:17] How TikTok has been weaponized by the Chinese language Communist Celebration.
[20:58] The origins of TikTok and its obfuscatory possession construction.
[26:30] How sowing chaos within the West serves the CCP’s goals.
[31:37] “Politics stops on the water’s edge.”
[33:11] How ought to the US rein in TikTok’s affect over its inhabitants?
[40:23] The importance of Taiwan geographically, ideologically, and economically.
[49:59] The semiconductor business in Taiwan and its international significance.
[52:07] Deterring China from attacking or coercing Taiwan.
[58:51] Cultivating social depth in Taiwan.
[1:01:09] Guessing at Xi Jinping’s timeline.
[1:05:33] Demonstrating the need to match the capability of following by.
[1:07:47] Matt’s high priorities for stemming Chinese language ambitions.
[1:10:15] Architects of chaos.
[1:14:21] Staying alert in opposition to informational warfare and united entrance exercise.
[1:21:00] Countering China’s affect on its Western-based residents.
[1:25:05] Checkers vs. Go.
[1:26:56] How can the US reassert its place as a beacon of democracy?
[1:33:05] What prompted Matt to hitch the Marine Corps at age 32?
[1:38:50] Getting in form for the event.
[1:40:45] Management classes discovered.
[1:46:59] The Boiling Moat, the significance of public service, and parting ideas.

MORE MATT POTTINGER QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

— Matt Pottinger

“We needs to be issuing a smartphone to each scholar who arrives from an authoritarian nation in america, make it a college program to say, ‘That is your freedom telephone. You may put any apps on right here that you really want. Don’t put any Chinese language apps on right here. Don’t put TikTok on right here. They’ll see every part. Don’t put WeChat, Weixin” — the Chinese language app which is used additionally as a surveillance device — ‘Don’t put that on right here. Put all of your free society issues onto this telephone after which know that your different one is being monitored by Beijing, by the celebration.’ So we needs to be doing rather more for the Chinese language diaspora that comes right here to review. We needs to be giving them a shot at really breaking free from this bubble of surveillance and censorship that follows them after they come to america. We needs to be breaking out of that.”

— Matt Pottinger

“Vandenberg had a well-known line. He mentioned, ‘Politics stops on the water’s edge.’ It means we will have bitter debates internally between left and proper, Democrats, Republicans, independents, Trump, Biden, however in terms of our nationwide curiosity, there should be a basic consensus that prevails that we’re on the identical workforce and that there must be some predictability and continuity in our insurance policies.”

— Matt Pottinger

“The Marine Corps talks quite a bit about each bodily braveness but in addition ethical braveness. So ethical braveness is extra necessary. It’s this concept that you’ll do the best factor when nobody’s trying, the concept you’ll sacrifice your self and never your integrity or your honor, however your place, with a view to ensure that the best factor will get executed, even when it exposes you to ridicule.”

— Matt Pottinger

“Public service is without doubt one of the greatest errors I stumbled into in my life. I joined the Marine Corps at 32, and I wouldn’t commerce that have for something.”

— Matt Pottinger

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